LETTER: Voter-ID law now only places unneeded barrier to casting of ballots

The struggle to obtain the right to vote in this country should be well known to everyone, but that right to vote should not be unreasonably curtailed, especially by unreasonably restrictive laws that has been passed mainly in southern states.

One of the biggest hurdles for a prospective voter is the voter-ID law.

The most readily acceptable photo-ID is the driver's license, but not everybody has a driver's license, let alone one with a photo.

Some people don't drive: some older people have given up their licenses, some people have handicaps that prevent them from having a driver's license, and the obtaining of another type of photo-ID can be fraught with difficulty and expense.

Though poll tax and literacy tests have been outlawed, substitutes have been found to take their place.

For example, the requirement of photo-IDs at the polls has been accompanied with the end of early and Sunday voting (as in North Carolina).

Doing away with early voting should be an abomination; facilitating the vote should be the aim of our governments.

Lastly, is voter fraud really a grave problem that our state legislatures need to combat?

For example, Wisconsin's attorney general, a Republican, examined the2008 election returns and discovered that out of 3 million votes cast, just 20 were found to be illegal.

A wider study conducted by the Bush judiciary department had found similar results for the period 2002 to 2007.

More than 300 million people had voted, and only 86 were found guilty of voter fraud, and most of them were simply mistaken about their eligibility.

"There is no evidence of widespread or systemic voter fraud occurring in the United States in recent history," reports Robert Brandon, founder and president of the nonpartisan Fair Elections Legal Network.

Governments that do not recognize photo IDs from other sources besides a driver's license, such as college students' IDs, severely inhibit voting.

These laws, as herein discussed, generally prevent the young, the elderly, the handicapped, and the working class from voting.

Such a result should not be what citizens seek.

Dicken E. Kidwell

South Maple Street

Murfreesboro

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LETTER: Voter-ID law now only places unneeded barrier to casting of ballots